


Safe Harbor

by psychobabblers



Category: DCU, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, One Shot, basically everything is Clark/Bruce in my head but this can be read either way, tw: mentions of canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychobabblers/pseuds/psychobabblers
Summary: Bruce saves the Kent farm from foreclosure when he should have. (And then he and Martha Kent become friends.)





	Safe Harbor

It was an unusually chilly day for the season when the first foreclosure notice arrived. Martha Kent was raking leaves that morning even though there were only a few stragglers on the ground, because it was better to do a small task a few times rather than to leave a monumental impossible one to the end. That just meant it wasn’t getting done.

And in any case, she always tried to keep her mind on doing things rather than on thinking things. It was easier that way. The old house had never been so neat, and even the externals were in passable shape considering it was just her and the dog now.

As if summoned by the thought, she heard the sound of the mailman’s truck and the subsequent barking it inspired and walked out front around the house. It was a small community and the mail carrier had been their mail carrier for decades now. He always tried to make it a point to stop and say a few words.

“Thanks, Sam,” she said, taking the mail from him. Blackjack wagged his tail at her side, friendly now that he had seen the mailman had completed his task. “How’s your wife doing?”

“Doin’ just fine. She keeps saying that all you gals had better get together for a ladies’ night real soon.”

Martha smiled, pretending she didn’t dread the mail delivery every day, in an abstract sort of way. “Sounds like fun.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries and then Sam was on his way, Blackjack running along the side of the road to see him off, just out of range of the dust the tires kicked up. She waited until he had trotted back to her side, tongue lolling out, before heading inside. There was no point in raking the leaves anymore. She dropped the opened letter in her hands into the wastebasket, knowing it was petty but deciding to indulge in the feeling anyway. They would just send more.

There was no point trying to fight it. Martha accepted this indignity of being exiled from her own house where she had lived with her family, where her husband and child were buried next to each other, because there was nothing she could do. This wasn't even the kind of problem Superman would have been able to solve, though she knew Clark would have tried. She just didn’t have the money, what with the economy going down the drain and the funerals eating into her savings. It was more practical this way, to take what was left in her account and whatever she could get when the foreclosure business had run its course and get a smaller place.

It didn’t help the hollow feeling in her chest though, when she laid awake at night unable to sleep. Blackjack would whine when that happened and drop his head on her stomach and sigh heavily in that way that dogs have, and stare at her mournfully. “Me too,” she would tell him, and feel the weight of the world crushing them.

The next morning, she got up at the same time as usual, shaking her head a little at her reaction yesterday. What’s done was done, and there was nothing she could do about it, so no sense feeling sorry for herself. She went out and raked the rest of the leaves before breakfast.

Surprisingly, no more foreclosure notices arrived in the mail. Far from alleviating her anxiety, it just made her nervous that the bank had somehow made a mistake and were only going to send her that one notice before showing up one day to boot her out the door. She had just resolved to call them next week if she still hadn’t heard from them again when someone knocked on the door, setting off a round of barking.

“Can I help you?” she asked through the screen. Blackjack made a disgruntled huff of a growl under his breath at the man in the neat suit who stood at the door.

“Mrs. Kent, I believe?” At her nod, he pulled out some papers from his briefcase. “I’ll get straight to the point then. I am a representative of the bank.” He didn’t have to specify which bank. Martha tried to keep her expression neutral. “I am here to offer you an apology. The bank has recently been undergoing some corporate restructuring at the top. It won’t have been on the news yet. In any case, the matter of your house was resolved satisfactorily. This is just a personal apology for any inconvenience you may have suffered. An official document will be sent to you within a few business days.”

Martha tried to gather her wits at this turn of events, and not a little suspicious. “Do you have any more details?”

“It seems that there were some old debts owed to your family that have just now been repaid,” the man said smoothly. “It was more than enough to cover the remainder of the mortgage. And as I said, official documents will be provided to you shortly.”

“Thank you,” Martha said faintly, for lack of anything else to say. There was a growing suspicion in her mind now, and not stemming from the idea that this might be a scam. “For coming all this way.”

“It was no problem at all. If you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to reach out,” the man said, giving her a glossy business card.

Once he had left, his shiny black car conspicuously out of place among the swaying corn, she sank down in a chair at her kitchen table. What to do now? How would she verify her suspicions? What would she do if this really was just a scam of some sort? She thought about calling Lois but discarded the idea, as she had many times before. The last time she had spoken to Lois on the phone, the young woman had sounded so stressed that Martha couldn’t bear to add anything else to her plate. She could deal with this on her own.

She had a computer that Clark had set up for her, but she’d canceled the Internet plan soon after his funeral. People could call her, and what did she really need Internet for anymore, with Clark gone? Certainly not to look at the news. Still, it left her with no option but to take the truck to the library to use the computer there.

With some finangling, coaxing, and mental cussing, she managed to find a contact phone number for Wayne Enterprises. It was a start, she thought.

By this point she shouldn’t have been surprised when she called the number, and, after just a short conversation with a very polite young man, was redirected to Bruce Wayne’s cell phone.

“Hello? Mrs. Kent?” And Martha had thought herself strong, had held herself together through burying her husband and then her son, burying her entire world, but somehow the sound of that warm baritone broke down her barriers and the flood tide of emotion behind it. It was an echo of the gravelly voice of the costumed man who had been there when Clark had --

“Mrs. Kent, are you alright?” Wayne sounded concerned.

She couldn’t speak, just let tears roll down her face, wanting to yell at this man for -- for what? For not saving Clark? What could he have done against that monster, when it could defeat Clark?

When at last the tears ebbed and she had enough presence of mind to feel a bit of embarrassment at her emotional breakdown in front of a complete stranger, he spoke again, startling her. She hadn’t thought he was still on the phone. “How are you doing?”

“I’m managing,” she said honestly. And then, remembering why she had called, “I received a foreclosure notice awhile back, and I got a visit from the bank today. They told me that some old debts owed to my family had paid off the house.”

“That seems like a stroke of good luck,” he said, not missing a beat.

“Yes,” she said. They stayed on the phone in silence for almost a full minute, because she didn’t know what else to say - she hadn’t actually expected to reach Bruce Wayne so quickly, if at all.

“I just miss him sometime,” she finally said.

“Me too,” he replied after a pause as if he isn’t sure whether he had the right, and his voice was a whisper.

There was another long silence, until Martha realized that it was the middle of the day, and she had probably interrupted him in whatever it was billionaire CEO’s did during the day. “I know you must be busy, but if you’re ever in town, feel free to drop by for supper, or some tea,” she said briskly. She knew he probably had better things to do than visit Kansas, but she thought he might appreciate the gesture.

“Thank you. If I am ever in town,” he said gravely. And then, as if sensing that she wanted to end the conversation, he said, “I’m afraid I have to go. I’ve kept the board members waiting a little too long.” Martha wondered if she was imagining the weary smile in his tone. “This is my personal cell phone. Please, feel free to call anytime if you need anything. It was good talking to you, and my congratulations on the house.” The line clicked off after she said goodbye.

Well then. The tabloids certainly hadn’t done him enough credit. Such a warm, though reserved man. It was strange to think that she’d been afraid when she first saw him in his costume.

She’d bake some pies to bring to her neighbors this afternoon, she decided. It’d be good to have the kitchen smelling delicious and homey again. And Blackjack definitely liked pie.

*

The next few days she was curiously lighthearted. Speaking to Bruce Wayne had pulled back the fog for her somehow, just a little, enough so that the days were a little clearer, a little brighter.

And then, exactly a week after she’d called, he showed up at her door in the afternoon. Blackjack was at the door, tail cautiously wagging. 

“Hello, Mrs. Kent. I hope you don’t mind me stopping by,” he said, flawlessly courteous. “I was in the area,” he continued. She looked past him and toward the driveway, where a dusty motorcycle was parked. “Had some business in Central City.”

“That’s several hours drive from here!” Martha said, appalled. She hadn’t even invited him inside yet, the poor boy, and he had come all this way on a motorcycle!

“I just baked some cookies, please come in.” He looked bemused as he was quickly ushered inside, Blackjack sniffing at his heels.

“I know you mentioned tea before, but I had the chance to pick up some excellent coffee. I hope you’ll take some,” he said when he sat down at the table. She’d worried it would be cramped but for such a large man, he didn’t seem to take up much space in the small kitchen. Not like her Clark.

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Wayne.”

“Please, call me Bruce.” He watched her bustling about the kitchen with the air of a man who was always rebuffed at his offers to help but was still determined to find an opportunity.

“Here you are,” she said, handing him a plate of cookies. “The tea will be just a moment.”

“Thank you,” he said quietly, accepting the mug. For a moment the utter ridiculousness of the situation struck her - Bruce Wayne, sitting in her kitchen! - and she had to stifle a laugh. Luckily Bruce didn’t seem to notice. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts. Another thing different from the tabloids, Martha reflected. The media presented him as a brash, impulsive man who never gave a moment’s thought before doing or saying anything.

But of course, she could hardly blame the media. It was certainly a good act to hide the fact that he was Batman. She wondered why it was more odd to her than Bruce Wayne was in her kitchen than Batman. The whistle of the kettle broke into her train of thought

“I hope I’m not intruding too much,” Bruce said, accepting the mug when she handed it to him. He was studying an uneaten cookie in his hand intently. “But I would like to visit his grave, if that would be acceptable to you.”

Martha’s heart thumped painfully, as it was wont to do whenever her boy was mentioned, but she found the words. “That would be fine, dear.”

Bruce looked up at the warmth in her tone. “Mrs. Kent, why don’t you despise me? You know who I am. You know what I did.”

“What did you do?” Martha asked sharply. “Were you the one who drove a stake through his chest? Were you the one who resurrected a monster to murder my son? That was Luthor, not you.”

Bruce didn’t seem to hear her. “I used to hate him. Superman,” he said. “I didn’t know Clark Kent existed. I only saw another person with great power who couldn’t be trusted to wield it responsibly. I was there the day he leveled half a city. Hundreds of my employees died that day, people I was responsible for.”

Martha sipped her tea, not wanting to interrupt him yet. He seemed to be working up to something.

“I wanted to take him down. Not kill him,” he said hastily. “But to force him to see that humanity was something to be respected, that our world was not just a playground for a god. I wish I’d known about Clark Kent. I thought that Superman was all that there was. I’m sorry.”

And because he seemed to be searching for absolution that she didn’t know she could give, that she didn’t think he needed, she dared to place a hand on his shoulder. He froze for a moment and then, amazingly, leaned into the touch. His eyes were scanning the small kitchen, looking at the knickknacks that had accumulated over the years, the rickety chairs and the leaky faucet. Outside, the golden fields stretched out to the horizon through the small window. His gaze landed on the family photo of her, Jonathan, and Clark when he was eight, and she realized with a start that he was weeping.

“I can take you to his grave whenever you like,” Martha said gently, and he nodded his thanks.

They nibbled at the cookies, and drank the tea in companionable silence after that. The mood lightened by unspoken agreement, and by the time he broke the quiet to inquire after the state of the farm, she could almost forget the intensity with which he’d spoken before. Blackjack was resting his head on his knee, looking at him adoringly, and when he absentmindedly patted him on the head while talking he would thump his tail on the floor.

And so the afternoon went by, and around the time the sun was setting past the horizon, she showed him her family’s graves and left him alone there to do his own grieving.

When he returned it was hours later and very dark out, and he thanked her for the excellent cookies and the tea, and that he hoped she enjoyed the coffee. “Be careful, dear, on the drive back,” she said. “Motorcycles are so dangerous to ride on the highway.”

Bruce smiled and agreed that it was so, and that he would be careful.

* * *

As the weeks flew by, Bruce became an infrequent visitor to the Kent house. Martha Kent refused to accept his money when he offered to purchase things for the farm, especially as she suspected the “debt” the bank had collected on her behalf came from him. She didn’t mind having an extra hand around to do some heavy lifting though, so oftentimes he would make improvements with his hands like fixing up the barn or repairing the fences or tinkering with the tractor to improve its fuel consumption.

She drew the line at his offer of building a fully autonomous all-in-one agricultural vehicle for her though.

As much as his visits hopefully helped her though, Bruce thought they helped him more. He hadn’t expected she would try contacting him after he’d saved the house from foreclosure, let alone welcome him into her life. But it alleviated some of his guilt at least to ensure Clark’s mother had no worries. And he genuinely liked and respected her.

He knew it wasn’t him that she really wanted at the farm, in her kitchen, complimenting her cookies. As the aftershocks of Clark’s death rippled across the planet though, and the parademon sightings began increasing dramatically, Martha Kent would have to make do with Bruce Wayne, just as the world had to make do with Batman.

**Author's Note:**

> And then Clark comes back to life and is like “what.” XD


End file.
